“When I’m coaching, I teach bowlers to stay down until the ball hits the pins. That’s exaggerated, but it will help complete the shot.”

wasn’t doing it, and no one has ever pointed that out to me before. Even when I was using a fi ve-step approach I didn’t cross over on the second step. I never paid attention to it.” So, during every frame of the

Queens competition, Asbaty re- minded herself to step left with her fi rst step. She also reminded her- self to stay down at the fi nish. “Those were my two points of

focus for every frame,” said Asbaty. “Staying down at the fi nish is some- thing I’ve always struggled with, even in college. I get a little anxious and I pull up on the shot. I knew if I just stayed ‘seated,’ as my college coach would say, I would make a good shot. “When I’m coaching, I teach bowl-

ers to stay down until the ball hits the pins,” Asbaty added. “That’s exag- gerated, but it will help complete the shot. If you come up too early, you’re going to be inconsistent on hitting

17 USBOWLER MAY 2012

your mark. Stay down and com- plete your shot. The ball will come off your hand the same way every time, and the angle it gets onto the lane will be more consistent. You’ll hit your mark far more often.” The keys, of course, serve a

greater purpose than simply cor- recting technical fl aws. “Focusing on a few keys like that

allows the rest of your game to fl ow naturally,” Asbaty pointed out. “The more you can distract your- self from what you’re doing the bet- ter chance you can get yourself into the subconscious. I coach it all the time, but it’s not so easy to get there. Your conscious mind wants to take over. You want to think about your swing and little things like that.” All of which led to an opportunity

in the fi nal frame to lock out top- seeded Dorin-Ballard with a strike. “Again, I just told myself to step

left and stay down,” Asbaty said. “To be able to step up in the 10th frame with a chance to win a ma- jor, against a Hall of Famer, that was a dream coming true.” And in a single shot, all the tour-

naments, all the events her parents took her to, all the coaches who helped build her game and all the practice she’d put in converged. “That’s why it was so spe-

cial,” Asbaty acknowledged. “Ev- erything I’ve done since I was 5 paid off in one frame.”